426 Mr. A. Walker on the Cause of the Direction of 



Journal of Science there was an error in the printing, which 

 might cause a good deal of trouble to any persons who wished 

 to prove upon their own observations the formulae I have 

 deduced for calculating the heights, &c, of arches from their 

 azimuthal extents and altitudes. In the one paper, for p = 

 1 + eg, and in the other p = \ e + g, it should have been 

 printed p = 1 + eg. 



The reader will, I am sure, acquit me of being a party to 

 tolerating any notion that the meteor seen in the N.N.W. 

 part of the heavens, over a distance of country of 200 to 300 

 miles, can possibly be located in the region of the clouds, or 

 that the epithet borealis, acknowledged to be appropriately 

 applied to this aurora, can be with any propriety attached 

 to any variety of aqueous clouds seen in our lower atmo- 

 sphere. 



LXVIII. On the Cause of the Direction of Continents and 

 Islands, Peninsulas, Mountain Chains, Strata, Currents, 

 Winds, Migrations and Civilization. By Alexander 

 Walker, Esq.* 



[ SHALL first endeavour to show that all of these have 

 *- one general direction. 



With regard to continents and islands, which, as indicating 

 the course of lands generally, it is proper to consider in con- 

 nexion, the general direction of America is, evidently and ex- 

 tensively, north and south, as regards both its continent and 

 the groups of islands to the south of the Strait of Magalhaens. 

 The Old World, if we take into view its continent alone, has 

 its chief direction east and west; but when we add to the 

 further peninsula of Asia, the Indian isles, Australia and New 

 Zealand, and observe that that world is deeply indented by 

 the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, &c, — that, 

 in fact, Asia is thus separated to half its depth from Europe 

 and Africa, — it is impossible not to see, even in these two divi- 

 sions of that world, a prevailing tendency to the same direc- 

 tion, north and south. The positions of the Black Sea and 

 the Caspian, and of the White Sea and the Gulf of Obe, tend 

 further to the same effect. 



With regard to peninsulas, it is truly remarkable how uni- 

 versally they have this direction. Scandinavia, Spain, Italy, 

 Greece, Africa itself, Arabia, India, Malaya, Corea, Kamt- 

 chatka, Alaska, California, South America itself, Florida, 

 Nova Scotia, Greenland, run from north to south ; and the pen- 



* Communicated by the Author. 



